Emily: Hello. May I help you?

Mrs. Knoll: (angrily tossing her new prescription on the counter) I don’t know. It depends. How long’s this gonna take? And who are you?

Emily: I’m a new pharmacist here, Emily Harris. Nice to meet you. (extends hand) I just came in, so let me see how long it will take.

Mrs. Knoll: Don’t bother. I see him back there. Hey, Hank, how long are you going to make me wait this time before you take half my money?

Hank: I have three people ahead of you, so it will be about 20 minutes. What’s wrong today?

Mrs. Knoll: What do you care? All you want to do is take my money. Twenty minutes to throw a few pills in a bottle—that’s ridiculous.

Emily: Would you like to have a seat while we fill your prescription?

Mrs. Knoll: What for? If I sit down, he’ll probably take longer. So what are you gonna do here? Cause Hank to charge me even more?

Emily: Actually, Hank hired me to help patients manage chronic illnesses like diabetes, asthma, and high blood pressure. I noticed that your medicine is for high blood pressure.

Mrs. Knoll: So, what’s it to you?

Emily: Did you just find out you have high blood pressure?

Mrs. Knoll: Are you gonna ask me about my life history or are you gonna fill my prescription?

Emily: Let me give this to Hank to fill. If it’s OK with you, I’d like to talk to you about your medicine while he fills the prescription. (hands prescription to Hank, who rolls his eyes)

Mrs. Knoll: What for? (indignantly)

Emily: Did you just find out you have high blood pressure?

Mrs. Knoll: No! You really are new, aren’t you? I had a water pill, and the doctor said it wasn’t doing enough to control my blood pressure, so he gave me this stuff today. Isn’t that just wonderful? (sarcastically)

Emily: I know you must have been disappointed to find out your blood pressure was up.

Mrs. Knoll: Scared the heck out of me. I don’t want to have a stroke, for goodness sake.

Emily: I don’t want that either.

Mrs. Knoll: Why? So you won’t be able to get my money?

Emily: Mrs. Knoll, it is really important to me that my patients do as well as possible on their medicines. I don’t want anything to happen to you, and I don’t want you taking medicine that isn’t helping. I would rather have you take less medicine and pay less money, if that’s what is needed.

Mrs. Knoll: Yeah, right.

Emily: Let me tell you something about this new medicine Dr. Braun is giving you. It’s called a…

Mrs. Knoll: (interrupts) Just put one of those leaflets in the bag when he’s done. I’ll read about it, and if I have any questions, I’ll call.

Emily: As I said, Mrs. Knoll, I want to make sure you get the most benefit from your medicine. I don’t mind taking some time now.

Mrs. Knoll: That’s OK. Just put the leaflet in the bag.

Emily: OK, please do call if you have any questions. Hank should have your medicine for you in a few minutes. By the way, Mrs. Knoll, do you have your blood pressure checked regularly?

Mrs. Knoll: Every 6 months at the doctor’s office.

Emily: I’d like you to consider getting it checked more often. It’s the only way you can be sure your medicine is working properly. We have blood pressure cuffs that I can show you how to use, or we can check your blood pressure here in the pharmacy as often as you want. We would send the readings to your doctor every 2 weeks.

Mrs. Knoll: Hank has trained you well. (says this loudly enough for Hank to hear) Just another ploy to get my money.

Emily: I’m sorry you thought that was what I was doing. I really think it’s important for my patients to regularly monitor their blood pressure, and I hope you will consider it.

Mrs. Knoll: Sure, sweetie. (condescendingly) Just tell Hank to get me my medicine.

Emily: I sure will. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Knoll. You have a good day.

Mrs. Knoll: Sure. (rolling eyes)

After a few minutes, Hank hands Mrs. Knoll her medicine, and she complains about the co-payment and then leaves. Hank goes back to the pharmacy and talks to Emily:

Hank: I don’t get you.

Emily: What do you mean?

Hank: Why were you so nice to her? She certainly wasn’t nice to you.

Emily: So, you think that I should be kind and caring only to the people who are nice to me?

Hank: Well, not exactly, but she’s just such a grump!

Emily: She doesn’t trust people. That’s sad.

Hank: Huh? Sad? It’s downright infuriating. What did I ever do to her?

Emily: I don’t know. Since I just met her, I know I didn’t do anything, and still she mistrusted me.

Hank: Doesn’t that bother you?

Emily: It makes me feel sad. It must be a horrible feeling to believe no one can be trusted.

Hank: It irritates the heck out of me. I didn’t do anything to her. All I’ve ever done is try to help, and she gripes about everything.

Emily: So you feel attacked.

Hank: Darn right. I don’t understand why you don’t feel attacked.

Emily: I know her response has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to be a victim, walking around and being angry or upset just because other people are that way.

Hank: So, are you saying I’m a victim?

Emily: Hank, here’s what I know. I read a remarkable book called Leadership and Self-Deception¹ by the Arbinger Institute. I was so taken by what it had to say that I went back and read another book, Bonds That Make Us Free,² by Arbinger’s founder, C. Terry Warner. These books have changed the way I see the world. In a nutshell, here’s what they say. We can choose either of two ways to respond to people. Arbinger calls them the responsive way and the resistant way. In the responsive way, we see people as people. We are open and responsive to their concerns. We see their pain, their disappointment, their joy, their happiness…even their mistrust. In the resistant way, we see people as objects. We resist their reality. We see them as less important, less relevant, less real, or a threat—if we see them at all. In the resistant way, people are irrelevant or they are obstacles (a threat to us) or vehicles (someone to do our bidding). In this way of being, we are focused on ourselves and don’t really see the other person.

Hank: Are you saying that, with Mrs. Knoll, I’m in the resistant way?

Emily: I’ll let you think about that, Hank. The point is that we choose our way of being. Our way of being goes deeper than how we behave outwardly. Can I tell you more?

Hank: Yes, you’ve got me interested—skeptical, but interested.

Emily: Drawing on the work of the philosopher Martin Buber,³ Warner and the Arbinger Institute say that we are always in relationship with people. Who we are, our “I,” is not a separate “I.” It is an “I” always in relationship to others.

Hank: You just lost me.

Emily: See if this helps. When we are in the responsive way of being, we relate to people in the way Buber called I–thou, or I–you. In the resistant way, we relate as I–it. The other person is no longer real to us, no longer a person. For this to happen, we have to become blind to the reality that even though we may not like the way they are acting, people are still people, not objects.

Hank: I think I see what you mean. We are always in relationship and always choosing our way of being, which determines how we see another person. People really aren’t objects; it’s just how we see them.

Emily: Exactly! Here’s a question for you, Hank: When is a person not a person?

Hank: Is this a trick question, Emily? A person is always a person.

Emily: Right! Despite the fact that people are always people, they can become objects to us. But, in truth, do they become objects?

Hank: This is getting deep. But, no—that’s just how we see them.

Emily: Exactly! It’s how we see them. They did not cease being people. We may not like what they do. They may not do what we want them to do. They may not seem important at the moment. But they are still people…. Hank, you look a little pale.

Hank: I’m a little stunned. I think you’re saying that the problem with Mrs. Knoll was my way of being and my refusal to see her as a person.

Emily: That’s very insightful, Hank. Warner and Arbinger call this self-betrayal or self-deception. It is what happens when we don’t do what we know is right or when we do something other than what we know to be right. We betray ourselves. It also happens when we don’t even know we have a problem.

Hank: You just lost me. What does that have to do with seeing Mrs. Knoll as a person or as an object?

Emily: OK, let’s try this. You will agree with me that Mrs. Knoll, no matter what you think about her, is a person.

Hank: Yes.

Emily: Yet, as soon as you saw her…

Hank: OK, OK. Go on.

Emily: What was it that caused you to stop seeing her as a person?

Hank: It’s the way she acts.

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